


Spiders

by Ash_Cassidy97



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Post-Battle of Hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-06 03:52:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13402884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ash_Cassidy97/pseuds/Ash_Cassidy97
Summary: He lived in a cupboard for eleven years. He lived at Hogwarts for the next six.Harry Potter leaned over Snape. He rubbed his hands on the knees of his jeans. He had dried blood and mud under his fingers. The Elder Wand was gone, but he kept laying his across his lap, making sure that it was still there.





	Spiders

He lived in a cupboard for eleven years. He lived at Hogwarts for the next six.

 

Harry Potter leaned over Snape. He rubbed his hands on the knees of his jeans. He had dried blood and mud under his fingers. The Elder Wand was gone, but he kept laying his across his lap, making sure that it was still there.

 

McGonagall was abed, along with most of the school. Dumbledore's Army was holed up in the Great Hall. The ceiling was crumbling wall, and Harry kept a vigilant watch over Snape.

 

He grew up with spiders, and Draco Malfoy lay in the bed behind him. The fires had caught them at the door.

 

“Do you need anything, dear?” Pomphrey asked him, like he was still a child, like she refused to look at him like a general in a war. Maybe the war was gone, maybe it was over.

 

“No, thank you. Get some rest.” And she left him, more than aware that she wouldn’t sleep well that night. Her duties had just begun.

 

Severus Snape woke up to a pair of green eyes.

 

He didn’t grow up in a cupboard with spiders. He did not meet a redhead on a train and get inducted into a family. He met a green eyed girl with a perfectly polite family who never quite knew what to do with him.

 

He woke up to green eyes though.

 

“Did we win?”

 

“He’s gone,” Harry reassured him. “Dead.” He didn’t say they won.

 

Snape nodded and closed his eyes for a fraction of a second in pure relief. It was over. It had to be over, right? He opened them just as quickly. “Are we safe?” It was never over.

 

“Yeah. The Death Eaters fled or were arrested. Malfoy’s in the bed behind me. The dead are in the halls. Most of the serious cases were sent to Mungos.”

 

“Water?” Harry helped him sip water.

 

“Go back to sleep,  _ professor _ , I’ll keep watch.”

 

Snape nodded.

 

He had not grown up among spiders and redheads’ with a pension for loyalty and Voldemort. He’d grown up with a girl who would die and blood already on his hands. He grew up among spies.

 

Harry slumped in the chair, asleep for the first time in the past three days. Potion cram sessions had nothing on this. He jolted awake anytime a mouse squeaked or the glass cracked, only to pass right back out.

 

He didn’t wake when Malfoy finally stirred.

 

“We win?” He asked Snape who was reading a book.

 

“Yes. Potter’s been nodding in and out.”

 

“Grand.” Draco coughed and rolled on his side.

 

Harry jolted awake and caught the blond by the shoulder and rubbed his back. Draco kept coughing up blood. Snape tried to get out of bed, pulling his neck and swearing harshly.

 

“Stop,” Harry told him. “One thing at a time. It’s alright. Your lungs got smoke in them. They need to drain.”

 

“Is that why-there’s a damn-line-inmychest?” Draco coughed out.

 

“Yeah. Just relax. Take it easy.”

 

“Green bottle on the left,” Snape instructed, still half thinking about leaping out of bed. He rolled his eyes at Potter’s face. “I’m not poisoning him.” 

 

Harry nodded. He kept Draco-Malfoy-in bed with one hand and undid the bottle with a hand, biting the top off. He forced it down Malfoy’s throat, working it down through his coughing.

 

“Better?” Snape bit out, angrily because of his inaction.

 

Draco nodded, trying to fight off Harry’s hands. Harry didn’t let him. Snape sagged back on the bed, fighting his lungs. Harry succeeded at tucking Draco back under the blankets, helping to wipe his mouth with a cloth. Harry muttered a spell to clean up the blood. He was good at it.

 

“What’re you doing, Potter?”

 

“Helping you, Malfoy. Successfully, or so it seems.”

 

“Please stop at once.”

 

“Never.” Malfoy had shoved Potter onto that broom, praying. Harry clutched at his enemy and prayed right back.

 

“So, you went through a fire?” Snape panted weakly.

 

“Hmm. You’ll be fine,” Harry told Draco. Harry turned to Snape. The older man shrunk back. “Steady on.” He touched the man’s shoulders, carefully untucking the sheets.

 

“Potter, stop that at once.”

 

“Need to check your bandages.” Severus’ fought him, fighting his need to cough as well. Potter won the light scuffle; Snape won his against his body. “Easy, easy.” There was light flecks of blood on the bandages. Potter tapped his wand against the skin. “Alright, it’ll hold until morning.”

 

“You don’t say.”

 

“Hmmm, I want to get some ice down your throat if that’s the most of your sass.”

 

“I’ve had six years of watching your potions work to support my reasoning of your medical skills.”

 

“Well, I’m a lot better at bandaging people up, sir.” Severus blinked at that, that form of address.

 

“Are you hurt?” Draco asked.

 

“What? No. Coming back to life apparently heals all woes.”

 

“What?” The others tried to roar.

 

Harry gave them a puzzled look. “I died. Tom-” They both flinched “The Dark Lord killed me.” Harry gave Malfoy a look. “Don’t go running to the press.”

 

“I won’t,” Draco said, without much of a fight in his voice. “My parents?”

 

“They fled.”

 

“I bet.” He curled inward. “I-” He started, but stopping, shuddering to a halt.

 

“Steady,” Severus told him. “It’ll work itself out.”

 

If Harry had been a year younger, he’d have asked then. But he’d had a year of war under his belt (he had almost 18, but he ignores that). Draco had scars under his skin, burns stretching across his body. He had nearly 18 years to learn to see that, and he’d never seen it until now.

 

“Can you keep from killing yourselves for a second while I shower?” he asks instead. They both agree.

 

He strips off his clothing, and washes his body down, trying to forget. He scrubs off the dirt, the blood, the sweat, but he can’t forget. Hard to forget your own death.

 

Hermione was going to send him so many books on PTSD, he thinks, chuckling darkly. She was holed up with Ron in the great hall, keeping them safe. She’d barely let him out of her grasp.

 

“Are you finally going to go to sleep, Potter?” Malfoy asks him when he came back.

 

“Yeah,” Harry says, but he sits on the bed like it’s another war zone. “You both should get some more sleep.” He lays on the bed, shoes on his feet. He switched to spare cloths that Pomfrey had in the cupboard. He keeps a firm hold on his wand, and wow doesn’t that sound suggestive. It’s his last thought before he falls asleep.

 

“Pot. Kettle,” Draco murmurs. Severus snorts, but that’s the last conversation they have until afternoon.

 

Harry wakes to them talking softly over him.

 

“He’s a lot more likeable asleep,” Draco says to Severus.

 

“Hm. That’s for you to think.”

 

And Harry goes back to sleep, smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, this whole thing is a story written about the sphinx. Well, it started out that way. I've been working on this on and off for a while now (possibly years). So hopefully it's more or less done. Please review if you want me to write more or like it.


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